The Rural Voice, 2001-08, Page 69People
Connell, Whelan, 4 others join Hall of Fame
Palmerston seed dealer Alex
Connell and legendary federal
agriculture minister Eugene Whelan
were among six people inducted in
June to the Ontario Agriculture Hall
of Fame at the Country Heritage Park
(originally the Ontario Agricultural
Museum).
Connell, who died in 1999, grew,
processed and marketed superior
pedigreed seed and operated a beef
feedlot at Palmerston. His leadership
skills were evident at all levels of the
pedigreed seed industry where he
actively participated locally,
provincially, nationally and in the
International Association of Seed
Certifying Agencies.
He produced certified seed for 37
years, including 11 as a director of
the Ontario Seed Growers'
Association and one year as
president.
For 13 years he represented
Ontario on the Canadian Seed
Growers' Association. He was one of
the founding shareholders of First
Line Seed.
As well, he was president of the
Ontario Cattlemen's Association in
1978.
In 1999 he was named Honorary
Life Member of the Ontario Institute
of Agrologists. His induction was co-
sponsored by the Ontario
Cattlemen's Association and the
Ontario Seed Growers' Association.
Whelan and his famous green
stetson hat will now also find his
place among the 143 inductees in the
hall. During his 10 years as federal
agriculture minister, he proclaimed
national supply management
agencies for eggs, chickens and
turkeys and established the Canadian
Dairy Commission. For those
commodities not under supply
management, he fought to provide a
level playing field in world markets
at a time of heavy U.S. and European
subsidies.
As minister he also raised the loan
limits for Farm Credit Corporation
loans to young farmers and created
the Crop Development Fund and
introduced the Advance Payment for
Crops Act.
Whelan is also a former member
of the Canadian senate and served as
ambassador to the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization.
He has been named an Officer of the
Order of Canada.
His induction was sponsored by a
number of supply -managed
commodity organizations.
Also inducted into the hall were:
Martin A. Drew of Merlin, William
Thomas Ewen of Guelph; Ernest
Andrew Kerr of Simcoe and
Kenneth Lantz of Mississauga.
Drew (1874 - 1949) was a leader
and visionary during turbulent,
depressed times in Ontario
agriculture and spearheaded the
Burley Tobacco Marketing
Association in 1935. He helped
develop marketing schemes for
tomatoes and soybeans and was a
founding director of the Ontario
Sugar Beet Producers Marketing
Board in 1942. (He was nominated
by his son, sometime Rural Voice
freelance writer Larry Drew).
Ewen (1910-1996) influenced
agriculture through research,
teaching in the classroom,
correspondence courses, meetings
and farm visits. His career was
centred in Ontario but his influence
spread to many countries through
students and alumni.
He helped develop rapid soil tests
for plant nutrients such as potassium,
phosphate, calcium, magnesium and
nitrates and supervised the operation
of th Soils Advisory Service in
southwestern Ontario.
Kerr is considered to be the most
successful vegetable breeder Canada
has ever produced. During his 38 -
year career, he made major
contributions to the Horticultural
Research Institute of Ontario. His
advancements in tomato, sweet corn
and other crop germ plasma
development are unequalled.
Lantz rose through the ranks in
what was then called the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food
from assistant agricultural represent-
ative to the post of deputy minister.
He was named a "Fellow" of the
Agricultural Institute of Canada.0
Kids create
museum
in dad's old barn
The urge to be creative and
make unusual choices is obviously
hereditary in the Drummond
family. Father John Drummond
turned from pork farming into
Greenbelt Farm, one of the region's
largest nursery operations on his
family's Bornholm -area farm. Now
his children Kollene, 13, Jennifer,
12 and 10 -year-old twins David
and Garnet have started a museum
in the old barn on the farm.
The youngsters have been
collecting items from their great-
grandfather's old general store in
Arkwright, near Tara as well as
items from century old school
houses, farms and farm houses.
"We were sitting at the entrance
of the barn and we were very bored
on a hot summer day and we had
all this old stuff, so we decided to
do a museum," Kollene told a
reporter from the local newspaper,
The Mitchell Advocate.
Since last summer the collection
of historical artifacts has doubled
in size, and now has more than 200
items, John says. The number of
items and their possible worth, is
not what's important, he says.
"The real value is in the history
and the stories. (These stories and
the history) are worth far more than
the material value."
The Drummond family has run
the farm since 1915 and many of
the items came from grandparents
and great-grandparents. There is,
for instance, a copy of the 120 -
year -old New Cyclopedia of
Domestic Economy, which offers
instructions for preparing a chicken
dinner and how to sit around a
dining room table.
This summer the Drummonds
are numbering and cataloguing
their collection. The museum is
open when the garden centre is.
The museum bug seems to have
struck Kollene. She hopes to
become a museum curator.0